The present invention relates to an electronic still camera having an imaging device, such as a CCD, and a strobe device acting as supplementary light means, and more particularly to a strobe device that provides high-accuracy control without using a dedicated strobe flashing control circuit.
When natural light alone is insufficient in the amount of light in taking a picture with an imaging device, such as a camera, supplementary light is used to compensate for the light shortage. To do this, a strobe device is used, for example. To optimize the amount of flashlight in taking a picture, the strobe device flashes preliminarily beforehand and sets the amount of light of the main flashing for actual exposure.
To control the amount of light of the main flashing as described above, a control circuit including a special light-receiving element for controlling the amount of flashlight is provided in a strobe device, as disclosed in, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 3-126383.
The technique disclosed in the publication, however, requires an additional control circuit including a special light-receiving element for controlling the amount of flashlight in the strobe device, raising the manufacturing cost of the camera.
In addition, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKOKU Publication No. 5-44654 has disclosed an electronic camera system that uses an imaging element to set the amount of light of the main flashing on the basis of the integrated output, without using a special light-receiving element or a special control circuit.
The device disclosed in the publication needs no special circuit for controlling the amount of flashlight in the strobe device. When there is an interval between the preliminary flashing to set the amount of light of the main flashing and the main flashing, the photographer gets the impression that the main flashing is different from the flashing for exposure and therefore has a sense of incongruity. Particularly in remote-control photographing, the subject or subjects, one of whom remote-controls the camera, may mistake the preliminary flashing for the main flashing and may think that the photographing has just been completed and move before the main flashing is performed. In this case, the photograph obtained will be a blurred one.